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Post by jam on Dec 1, 2005 12:10:26 GMT -5
(I snipped the part not targeted at me) And Jam your wrong about hybrids many species more distinct then humans and Neanderthals can produce viable offspring. The entire Canis genus to start with(wolves, dogs, coyotes and jackals) jackals and dogs are separated by 7 million years of evolution but domestic dogs are still considered a minor threat to the breeding integrity of endangered jackal populations. Tigers and lions produce viable offspring, Polar bears and Brown bears too, any like sized members of the falcon(true falcons) genus, infarct many bird species. Within biology zones called hybrid zones are major issue in species determinacy, in some places you'll find to species that interbreed only in that location despite living side by side in other locations. The controversial east coast Canis species(Canis Lyon/Rufus) maybe an example of such a zone of interbreeding between coyotes and wolves which do not interbreed any were else in their range. Your basic biology book will give you the biological species concept, that if it can interbreed it must be the same species that same standard simply doesn't work in actual biology. Before you go insulting professional scholars biology chops, you should go hone your own. Where did I insult anyone? He's just talking out of his subject, which he may, or may not know about. If some biologist, who had studied exactly that, had said the quote, and provided examples, then it would be a weightier argument, but as it's said by basically a layman, then it's not much of an argument. I don't even think he himself believe in the hybridization idea Sure, individual hybrids does exist, but I'd like you to produce an example of a viable intra species mix, where the mix had a continuing influence in the predominant population? Remember, the Neanderthal died out. Maybe this had happened in some dog species, but , as you say, it's a controversial subject. And it's not like its set in stone that dog-wolf-dingo are different species, is it now? Even that is a controversial subject. Anyway, WHAT do you base your "probability" on? The fact that they coexisted? There's no real evidence that I know of, it's mere speculation, and as such not really that valid - unless I have missed something, and that's of course very possible . However, I only really know about cats, such as Ligers, and their offspring is anything but viable under natural conditions. And males are infertile, it's only some of the females that aren't. I'm not really up-to-date on these matters, admittedly, but hybridization is always bred out, as far as I know. There's always morphological differences that will make the hybrids unlikely, such as differences in gestation periods and various size matters, making hybridization improbable, but not always impossible. And, don't bring birds into it, I'm only talking about mammals. Because, if we bring fish in to this, then it's of course very muddled. I actually do agree that the species idea isn't that well defined, but your examples are still exceptions among mammals at least. Note, I'm ONLY talking about long term, that is multi generational hybridization.
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Post by Mike the Jedi on Dec 1, 2005 12:13:40 GMT -5
JaM, on a completely unrelated note, I like your avatar. It would make the most hardened Neanderthal smile.
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Post by Faelcind on Dec 1, 2005 16:55:50 GMT -5
Where did I insult anyone? He's just talking out of his subject, which he may, or may not know about. If some biologist, who had studied exactly that, had said the quote, and provided examples, then it would be a weightier argument, but as it's said by basically a layman, then it's not much of an argument. I don't even think he himself believe in the hybridization idea Sure, individual hybrids does exist, but I'd like you to produce an example of a viable intra species mix, where the mix had a continuing influence in the predominant population? Remember, the Neanderthal died out. Maybe this had happened in some dog species, but , as you say, it's a controversial subject. And it's not like its set in stone that dog-wolf-dingo are different species, is it now? Even that is a controversial subject. Anyway, WHAT do you base your "probability" on? The fact that they coexisted? There's no real evidence that I know of, it's mere speculation, and as such not really that valid - unless I have missed something, and that's of course very possible . However, I only really know about cats, such as Ligers, and their offspring is anything but viable under natural conditions. And males are infertile, it's only some of the females that aren't. I'm not really up-to-date on these matters, admittedly, but hybridization is always bred out, as far as I know. There's always morphological differences that will make the hybrids unlikely, such as differences in gestation periods and various size matters, making hybridization improbable, but not always impossible. And, don't bring birds into it, I'm only talking about mammals. Because, if we bring fish in to this, then it's of course very muddled. I actually do agree that the species idea isn't that well defined, but your examples are still exceptions among mammals at least. Note, I'm ONLY talking about long term, that is multi generational hybridization. Look jam sorry if I came of as being less then freindly in that post but this is just a point I am really tired of seeing. The simple fact is hybridization is much more complex issue in biology then most laymen know. I don't know your background in biology but Paleoanthropologists have to have extremely in depth biology backgrounds. A laymen accusing a paleoanthropologist of talking out of his field when discussing biology is akin to a laymen accusing a physicist of talking out of his field when discussing math. Biology is almost as much a base for paleoanthropology as math is for physcists. Viable inter species mixes, well Canis Lycaon is possible example carrying the genetics of possible three different species of Canis. There's evidence of viable hybridization in cercopithicine monkey's tinylink.com/?EJOXP34sxIIn any event I have never believed that neandertals were actually a seperate species. They were simply a regional variaton of archaic homo sapiens. The maximum length of time possible for a Sapiens neandertal split is not long enough for specation short of drastic genetic mutation like the loss of chromosome, which there is no evidence for. Human populations generation times are to long, our behavior to flexible and our habits to wide ranging to speciate that easily. If you want to understand why its really improbable that neandertals were a different species read up on relethford, templeton stringer etc. Knock funny I found allot of errors in the post you commented on, the dyslexia is still there maybe you just caught the knack of reading my posts without noticing.
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Post by bellosiciliano on Dec 1, 2005 22:42:10 GMT -5
The term species is a human invention
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Post by Agrippa on Dec 2, 2005 10:56:33 GMT -5
The term species is a human invention All terms are human inventions, thats called language. However, species, at least biospecies, are a biological reality, thats what matters.
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Post by jam on Dec 2, 2005 13:18:09 GMT -5
Look jam sorry if I came of as being less then freindly in that post but this is just a point I am really tired of seeing. The simple fact is hybridization is much more complex issue in biology then most laymen know. I don't know your background in biology but Paleoanthropologists have to have extremely in depth biology backgrounds. Unfortunately I'm a dropout guess I was too lazy? But it's OK! In any event I have never believed that neandertals were actually a seperate species. They were simply a regional variaton of archaic homo sapiens. The maximum length of time possible for a Sapiens neandertal split is not long enough for specation short of drastic genetic mutation like the loss of chromosome, which there is no evidence for. Human populations generation times are to long, our behavior to flexible and our habits to wide ranging to speciate that easily. If you want to understand why its really improbable that neandertals were a different species read up on relethford, templeton stringer etc. Knock funny I found allot of errors in the post you commented on, the dyslexia is still there maybe you just caught the knack of reading my posts without noticing. Uh, you made a very important point there, and reluctantly I'm forced to agree. I hadn't really thought about the time frame, but you're of course right, although I believe environmental pressure etc. can speed up speciation, I guess that's more change in morphology, and not really any massive genetical change. But considering that, then 2 million years aren't that much, so I'm puzzeled that Australopithecus etc. is so relatively different - or are they?
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Post by Cerdic on Dec 6, 2005 11:21:32 GMT -5
Camels an llamas have been mated to produce live (if probably sterile) offspring. See: education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,9959,755518,00.html The camel and llama have at least 10 million years of genetic isolation between them, perhaps as many as 30 million. Neanderthals and modern humans had perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand years of separation at most.
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Post by ndrthl on Dec 8, 2005 8:38:50 GMT -5
Neanderthals are not considered by present anthropologysts inferior (less intelligent) than homo sapiens. Some flavour of Neanderthal imho in two Italians, central and northern Italy. maybe Breitner (from Germany) would fit as another example? img451.imageshack.us/my.php?image=breitnerii8di.jpg
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Post by Crimson Guard on Dec 8, 2005 11:40:37 GMT -5
Jam,I to question the artist interpretation of the Neanderthal female...looks like they deliberately made her more human-like and impressionable(attractive),so yes its very miss-leading to the viewer.
More Prosthetics should've been used their to make it more Ape-like and realistic.
Larger Brain size doest always mean higher intelligence..and the tools attributed to them,where very poor and simplistic,nothing nearly as intricate and advanced as the early humans .Their speech was very impaired and lacked a certain genetic design that wouldve made them able to speak like humans,however its thought they where able to make some semblance to a speech of their own form language...
Do I think,sex occurred between the two separate species whether voluntarily or not,yes its possible.Do I believe they interbred and carry on in the human gene pool or had any other genetic influence on Human beings,absolutely not!
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Post by ivyleak on Dec 8, 2005 12:35:15 GMT -5
Neanderthals are not considered by present anthropologysts inferior (less intelligent) than homo sapiens. Some flavour of Neanderthal imho in two Italians, central and northern Italy. I am surprised the Italians at Dodona aren't offended that they are being compared to Neanderthals. BTW, that guy on the top looks like a Coarse Med male. I have often wondered where coarse meds came from being that they don't look much like the other meds they live among. Could Coarse types have Neanderthal looks? That guy on top looks like an Italian version of my Portuguese uncle- Weird me out
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Post by nockwasright on Dec 8, 2005 20:36:00 GMT -5
No need to be offended, the neanderthal comparison just means short and very sloping forehead with pronouced browridge, receding chin (that the two examples do not have btw). However I think the "neanderthal looking" phenotype is more frequent in central europe than Italy.
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Post by Cerdic on Dec 9, 2005 5:00:14 GMT -5
Larger Brain size doest always mean higher intelligence..and the tools attributed to them,where very poor and simplistic,nothing nearly as intricate and advanced as the early humans .Their speech was very impaired and lacked a certain genetic design that wouldve made them able to speak like humans,however its thought they where able to make some semblance to a speech of their own form language... There is compelling evidence that the Neanderthals adopted elements of the tool making technology of modern humans when they encountered it. Their own tool-kit was not particularly unrefined itself, though obviously not as advanced as the moderns. The great apes show lateralisation in the size of the speech areas (Broca's and Wernicke's areas) indicative of an potentiality to produce and understand elementary "language." The Neanderthals were very very much advanced on the apes in this regard. The soft tissue involved in producing speech is not preserved (unlike the evidence of brain structure from endo-cranial casts), so differences in anatomy between Neanderthals and moderns in regard to speech production is largely inferential. The ability of Neanderthals to produce a reasonably articulate speech is unkown but probable.
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Post by Liquid Len on Dec 27, 2005 13:42:50 GMT -5
Pierre Richard vaguely reminds me of some reconstructions I've seen:
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Post by wendland on Dec 27, 2005 21:00:20 GMT -5
It's very improbable that Neanderthals could make a large variety of sounds needed for a human type of language due to a different throat structure, our pharynx has a very specific size for the vocal chords-- change it even a bit and the range needed for human language sounds is shattered. It's sometimes speculated that this was one of our advantages over them, though it isn't known for sure. "People" who don't talk might have seemed quite alien. Also, I read that there is at least 700,000 years of genetic distance between US and THEM. Furthermore, all these people who look Neanderthal (the Italian guys, Central Europeans, et al.), what's that supposed to prove? Maybe living in similar geography, climate leads to similar developments. Sharks and dolphins are not particularly related, yet have developed physically similar forms, there are other examples. Less seriously, I can think of various human individuals who look like they might just have a few horse genes or dog genes back there in the family. Example: A site dating 35,000 years (if I remember well) was found in Russia. There were the remains of a camp fire with various charred and gnawed animal bones, also Neanderthal bones just as charred and gnawed. Those people saw them as food... If there was any mixing I don' think it left a trace, the evidence so far suggests not.
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